You had a job for life : story of a company town / Jamie Sayen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sayen, Jamie, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Paper industry--New Hampshire--Groveton--Case studies.

Paper industry.

Paper mills--New Hampshire--Groveton--Case studies.

Paper mills.

Labor--New Hampshire--Groveton--Case studies.

Labor.

Plant shutdowns--New Hampshire--Groveton--Case studies.

Plant shutdowns.

Unemployed--New Hampshire--Groveton--Case studies.

Unemployed.

Groveton (N.H.)--Economic conditions.

Groveton (N.H.).

Economic history.

New Hampshire--Groveton.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

283 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Hanover : University Press of New England, 2018.

Summary:

Absentee owners. Single-minded concern for the bottom line. Friction between workers and management. Hostile takeovers at the hands of avaricious and unaccountable multinational interests. The story of America's industrial decline is all too familiar-and yet, somehow, still hard to fathom. Jamie Sayen spent years interviewing residents of Groveton, New Hampshire, about the century-long saga of their company town. The community's paper mill had been its economic engine since the early twentieth century Purchased and revived by local owners in the postwar decades, the mill merged with Diamond International in 1968. It fell victim to Anglo-French financier James Goldsmith's hostile takeover in 1982, then suffered through a series of owners with no roots in the community until its eventual demise in 2007. Drawing on conversations with scores of former mill workers, Sayen reconstructs the mill's human history: the smells of pulp and wood, the injuries and deaths, the struggles of women for equal pay and fair treatment, and the devastating impact of global capitalism on a small New England town. This is a heartbreaking story of the decimation of industrial America. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: builders and destroyers

The life of the town

Feeding the mill

Making paper

Prosperous plant

Ratville, NH

Three generations of Wemysses

Crown prince

The perfect balance

The dark side

A fateful decision

End of an era

The worst years

The best years

A battle we couldn't win

Controllables and uncontrollables

F this

Epilogue: they ruined this town

Postscript: the day when corporate America doesn't run us.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Sayen, Jamie. You had a job for life.

ISBN:

9781512601398

151260139X

OCLC:

982090868